


Forget which side I'm on

by cantheysuffer



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Kidnapping, Loki Has Issues, M/M, Protective Thor, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-04 11:26:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3066110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantheysuffer/pseuds/cantheysuffer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asgard is in ruins and the gods are falling. The Kaiju coming through the breach are larger than ever before and their attacks more frequent. There are not enough Jaegars to defend the realm. It is a time of lies, betrayal, and a host of other sins, but maybe, if Thor and Loki manage to pull together, not quite the end of their world. </p><p>-</p><p>The first Thor movie re-imagined in the Pacific Rim universe, in which Thor is precious and Loki really needs to get his shit together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Velvedere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/gifts).



> This is my Secret Santa gift for [velvedere](http://velvedere.tumblr.com/). As per velvedere's request this is a pacific rim au that will have first time/tentative awkward kisses and smut. I was very excited to take this opportunity to finally watch Pacific Rim (which I loved!) and I wanted to write you some really weird smut, but then plot happened. Hope you like it! <3

The Kaiju anchored a portal into Asgard just like it was any other backwater realm in the galaxy. Or that was the story anyways. 

“It does not matter that we are gods. Just as we live, we can die,” Odin had said in his first official speech after the Kaiju emerged from the breach in Asgard's ocean. 

In said official story the Kaiju laid waste to the realm's golden architecture and the Asgardians retreated to their own high security prisons, now re-purposed into very cramped bunkers, and they lived to fight another day. 

As far as Thor's concerned that was the day that Asgard keeled over and they've been shambling around as zombies ever since. 

Or, it was the day things really got interesting and he truly started _living_. 

Maybe it was both. 

-

Thor was the first sign up for the Jaegar program the Defence Corps announced it. Fighting machines piloted by two gods synched up through a psychic loop called the drift were supposed to turn the war around. They were supposed to make it a war at all, as up until that point it had been a slaughter. Gods had been lining up in droves to die and the Kaiju had no qualms about painting the realm eternal with the cosmic blues and reds of their innards. All that was about to change. 

Loki signed up to be his brother's co-pilot, still in the early months of the Kaiju invasion when Loki's snark was fresh and biting and he had a glow to his all angles face, crisp as shattered glass. Later that face would close off and his lips would tighten in panic, but not until the end, and even then, not until the last day that Thor saw him. 

In the first eight months of the war Thor and Loki had twenty-eight Kaiju kills and, unheard of, Thor had one outside of their Jaegar, Mjolnir. 

Thor, like everyone else on the realm, prince or not, wasn't allowed above ground without the protection of a Jaegar, which meant that the only time he wasn't breathing stale prison air was during the biweekly breach attacks and the occasional scouting mission Odin sent the brothers off on for 'the good of Asgard.' 

(The scouting missions were completely unnecessary when the Kaiju attacks were down to a fine calculation and no one else was ever sent on them.)

On those 'missions' Thor and Loki would do a perfunctory round of the breach and then wander off to the forest, finding some lake or cave that they'd explored in their childhood and revisit the carefree years when they'd been heirs to an immortal kingdom and not traversing the crypt-like apocalyptic remains of Asgard's once lush expanses. They were definitely living like zombies, but now and then, they were living. 

\- 

And then it was over. 

Two months ago Loki had been inside Thor's head, their bodies synchronized from the drift that wrapped their minds around each other, thick and sticky until they melted together and Thor was at pains to remember where he ended and Loki began, and then the next moment there was nothing.

Absolutely nothing. 

Thor was so caught up in the jarring silence of his severed mind that he didn't register being ripped out of the Jaegar by a Kaiju. 

Kaiju had big teeth. From a distance they didn't look that impressive, Thor didn't even know until that moment that they even had teeth, but being held precariously between a Kaiju's teeth and flopped around like a particularly ragged toy would later give Thor a new appreciation for said teeth when he examined his mangled arm. Kaiju teeth were big and very sharp. 

A jolt of pain coursed through Thor's left arm, but he could barely feel it over the confusion numbing his body. Violently wrenched out of drift, it felt like he'd left half his brain back in the Jaegar. Thor couldn't even work his mouth to scream. He had lost his mind, only it was difficult to remember through the shock that said mind belonged to another person. Was another person. Someone not him. 

A flash of green light lit up Thor's vision and the surrounding sky. 

“Drop him, you oaf!” Thor was conscious enough to just barely register Loki shouting from the ground, voice far more nervous than his casual insult let on. Thor intimately knew Loki's voice, down to every tremor, and his brother was positively terrified. Something must have been very wrong. 

For a brief moment Thor wondered if he was going to die. Strangely, he'd never actually considered it before - or at least not as something that he would be on the side to experience. 

Dying. 

_Huh._

Another flash of green seidr exploded as it made contact with the Kaiju. The proximity of the heatbomb seared through Thor's suit and bit into his exposed flesh, but it had obviously hurt its intended target, the Kaiju, a lot more. The Kaiju shrieked and threw Thor. 

Thor hit the ground and rolled, but his left shoulder wasn't spared the impact. Thor grit his teeth and tried to ignore the throbbing pain of a fracture, at the very least. 

“Can you stand, Thor?” Loki called out hesitantly. 

Thor flopped onto his back to stare at his brother, who had abandoned the security of the Jaegar and was standing on the beach shore, completely unprotected as the injured - more importantly, pissed off, absolutely infuriated - Kaiju advanced. “Get back inside! GET BACK INSIDE!” Thor screamed. 

The world slowed for Thor as the Kaiju lurched at Loki. At the last second Thor tore his eyes away and ran for the Jaegar. 

Everything was quiet - dead silent. Thor's senses must have been haywire (it can't be over yet) as he made his way into the Jaegar's pilot dock and ripped Mjolnir out of the Jaegar named after his hammer. 

There wasn't enough time (but there's still some time, has to be) to charge the Jaegar's thunder guns so he took the hammer out, stumbled out of the Jaegar, and when he hit the beach, raised the hammer to the sky. 

Thor felt electricity swarm to Mjolnir and when his blood was singing with it he turned, locked his sight on the Kaiju, and unleashed all of the thunder in the sky. The world went white in lightning. 

Colour bled back in slowly and Thor's ears rung with the excess static jumping over his skin. 

“Loki? LOKI!?” Thor screamed through the smog filtering off the charred Kaiju.

“Here,” Loki responded in a voice the fragment of his usual cocky demeanour. His face was shrouded in gore and ash when Thor found him, sitting amongst the remains of the Kaiju, eyes wide in shock. 

“I was so worried Loki,” Thor said, immediately dropping to his knees and grabbing his brother in an embrace. Loki's arms went around Thor's back limply but he didn't quite return the hug. “I knew I would not hit you, but I was so worried that I would not get to Mjolnir in time.” Thor ran his hands over Loki's body. He couldn't feel so much as a scratch on him. “How did you hold off the Kaiju until I got to Mjolnir?”

Loki stiffened in Thor's arms. 

Thor pulled back and gripped Loki's nape with his uninjured hand, staring his brother in the eye. “How did you do it?” Thor panted, face flush with the exertion of real fear and a battle well fought. A battle won. 

“The Kaiju was distracted,” Loki said flatly. He cleared his throat. “I did nothing.”

Thor embraced his brother again. Everyone reacted to fear differently. Loki only needed time to come down and realize that he was safe. He had been inches from death. Thor buried his face into his brother's neck, chasing the icy chill that came off Loki's body. “I cannot believe you left the Jaegar. Never do that again,” he whispered fiercely into Loki's suit.

“I did not think I could hit the Kaiju with my seidr from so far away,” Loki muttered.

“You could have been injured,” Thor said.

“You could have died,” Loki replied gravely. 

“I did not,” Thor said, running his hand down his brother's back. “Thank you, even if what you did was foolish,” Thor joked, face wilting a little when Loki did not take the bait. He must have been truly shell shocked to not even rise to point out that Thor was always the foolish one of the pair. “We live to fight another day.” 

Except that wasn't quite true. 

When the rest of the Defence Corps finally came to collect the princes of Asgard Loki retreated to his temporary chambers in the prison without a word, face gaunt and pale - the ghost of the man that had rallied the courage to save Thor on the shore. 

Loki closed his door in Thor's face, not even taking to slamming it. He simply pressed it shut and turned the lock. 

Thor waited on the other side, but when he eventually stopped hearing Loki's muted movements in the room, probably passed out from exhaustion, Thor went down to the makeshift dining hall to chase the thrill of coming so close to death out of his own system. Such chasing involved mead. Lots and lots of mead. 

Thor slept until well past noon the next day and when he enquired as to Loki's whereabouts, he was surprised to hear that his brother hadn't left his chambers either. 

Thor knocked on Loki's door. When he heard no response Thor turned the knob, confused to feel it turn and the door open without force. 

Loki's room in the prison was a poor replica of his usual chambers in the now wrecked palace. Some of Loki's books had been salvaged, but the bookshelves were re-purposed from their previous life of housing a filing system. They lacked the majestic wood and the intricate knots of Loki's old bookshelves, sweeping like constellations, in patterns worn over centuries. Thor's fingers trailed absently over Loki's books as he made his way through the empty room and to Loki's bed, sheets tucked tight with military discipline and the pillow flat, missing the imprint of a head. Thor assumed Loki had risen early and simply been missed when he'd left, but there, in the centre of the bed, was a piece of paper. 

'Do not follow' was all that was written on the paper, scribbled by a frantic hand. Thor turned it over in his hands and frowned. 

\- 

“Dishonourably discharged,” Odin announced in front of the gathered members of the Defence Corps and pointedly avoided looking at the paper Loki had left behind. Thor had brought the note to his father in the hope that Odin would grant him leave to look for Loki and bring his brother home. Certainly something had happened. Loki was scared. He needed a friend. He needed his _family_. Odin had only cringed at the word and crumpled the note in his fist. “Loki is no longer a pilot for the Defence Corps, nor a prince of this realm, and will be considered an enemy to Asgard.”

“Surely you are overreacting father!” Thor interrupted. 

“A king rules by what he knows is right, not by emotion, and Loki has put us all in danger,” Odin replied sternly. 

“How is that?” Thor demanded, moving to stand at the front of the cramped tactical room that had once locked down Asgard's high security prisoners. Odin had appropriated the room and ordered the prisoners relocated to the low security East wing. Murderers getting lose just wasn't the priority it used to be. 

“As a pilot of the Jaegar program, he knows secret information about the Defence Corps.” 

“Who would he tell? Why would he tell anyone?!” Thor shouted, banging his fist on the table as he was worked up into frustration over how quick Odin was to blame his brother. Loki had run away. He wasn't a criminal. 

“That is the end of this discussion,” Odin said firmly. “And until we know where Loki is, you may not find a new co-pilot-”

“I would no other co-pilot than Loki,” Thor shouted back.

“AND you are grounded from the Jaegar program.” 

Thor gaped. “Very well,” he managed eventually with a glower. “Then I will leave immediately in search of Loki.” 

“Asgard needs you alive.” 

The air in the room crackled with pent up static energy. “Loki needs me and you cannot stop me from -” 

“Thor Odinson!” Odin shouted over him. 

Thor grit his teeth and glared. 

“You are hereby stripped of your powers,” Odin said with a pained look that felt false and wrong and left Thor queasy. “Until you can be trusted to not use them in ways that will compromise the security of this realm.” And with that Thor's armour fell away from his body like scattered stardust and the very force in his veins went silent, leaving him senseless to the elemental magics of the world. 

\- 

Two months later they are back in the same tactical room, only this time Odin says into the grim silence of baited breath around him, “some wars cannot be won.” 

Thor's leaning against the door and his face doesn't even bother to drop, already wracked in the perpetual frown he's taking to wearing since Loki's disappearance. He's suffocating on underground prison air, days spent with too many off duty Jaegar pilots offering to play cards or drink with him to be a coincidence, and nights with an armed guard outside of his bedroom door. At least Odin doesn't have the gall to try to make that off as something other than the distrust it is. To top it all off, Thor's mortal. Nine decades to live if he's lucky, fragile bones, better left on Midgard if the Kaiju hadn't already destroyed the realm, mortal. Maybe he'll die of old age or his weakened body will catch some fatal illness before they figure out what happened to Loki and Thor has his powers restored. It's likely. No one has made the made the slightest effort to track Loki down. Wouldn't it just serve Odin right if Thor, heir to the throne of Asgard, died of something as innocuous as the common cold? 

“It is the wise that know when to retreat,” Odin continues. Thor may be mortal, but it's Odin that looks like he's aged half a decade in the time since the war started. He grips the table before him a little too tightly. “as we must do now. Four Kaiju will be in the breach in two days and we will hold them off one last time while we evacuate the realm.” 

“No,” Thor interrupts. He doesn't even bother to raise his voice, oh how little it will be heeded, but he can't do nothing. He scowls in the absence of a more promising option and it's pathetic, how he's been reduced to the threat level of a de-clawed house cat. 

“This is no time for warmongering, Thor. We must do what is best for Asgard,” Odin says.

“How can we do what is best for the realm by leaving it to be ravaged?” Thor demands. 

“We will save its people and they are all that matters. We only have three Jaegers left and we are out of resources to do more than buy time.” 

“Four.”

“What?”

“We have four Jaegers.”

“Mjolnir does not count, Thor. You no longer have a co-pilot and you cannot pilot a Jaeger alone.” Odin's voice lowers in sympathy, but his face doesn't give. It's all insincere anyways. 

“We need every available Jaeger in the breach when the Kaiju come in. I can do it father,” Thor insists firmly. 

“I value your courage, Thor, but do not waste it on this.” Odin sighs in weighted frustration. They've long gotten past the audience present for such a heated conversation. The time for privacy and other such luxuries is long gone. “Your mother could not bare to lose you as well,” Odin says.

Thor physically recoils from the words, eyes widening and cheeks reddening in response to the slap of Loki's mention and how casually Odin refers to Frigga's loss and not his own. “She has not lost anything,” Thor mutters through gritted teeth. “I have not given up hope, on Loki or my own ability to find him, even if you have made that near impossible while his trail grows cold.”

“You will bleed the realm with your arrogance. You are a foolish boy-”

Thor storms out of the tactical room and is allowed the small miracle of not being followed or dragged back before his king for his insolence. Shame his dignity is so far gone before the citizens of Asgard, but there is nothing Odin can do to wound his sense of duty. 

Thor vows to himself that he will find his brother, a promise whispered in the (false) privacy of Loki's chambers. He paces the length of the room, searching Loki's books, upending them for any clue his brother left behind. Thor will find Loki, no matter what he must endure along the way. 

-

Loki has other plans.


	2. Chapter 2

In the high morning sun of Asgard the bodies are just that - bodies. Decomposing remnants of gods on the golden palace floors in nature's big fuck you to all of Asgard's finery. The paintings, the curtains, the chairs, those haven't gone to rot yet, but oh the gods definitely have. They're incapable of reaching Valhalla without their sacred funeral pyres and religious rites, suspended in the wake of the Kaiju invasion. Suspended like a breath all of Asgard is holding for way too long. The realm is suffocating. They're just bodies. Loki tries not to step on someone's hand as he walks past.

Loki's boots make a clicking sound as he walks up the aisle to the throne. He lowers to one knee in a bow, cloak sweeping over the dirty floor, and a smile quirks on his gaunt face. A bubble of laughter spills out of his lips and he strides forward with a kick in his step, flopping into the throne gracelessly, feet up and resting on the arms. 

“Anyone mind? No?” he asks the empty throne room, head cocking to the side in a false faced gesture of smug satisfaction. The expression is deceptively fragile and already wearing thin.

“Thought not,” he says, voice dropping as it goes flat. 

Loki shifts on the throne. “I cannot imagine how Odin sat here for so many hours,” he mutters to himself. He fills the silence with his own banal chatter in a frantic fidget that originates in his vocal cords. “So uncomfortable, and yet, he sat and stared,” Loki goes on. Silence for just a moment. “Stared,” he repeats. 

Loki's tongue darts out over his lower lip. Just as quickly the mood is gone (was it ever there?) and he hastily slips off the throne, green eyes downcast as his face simmers empty. 

“Right,” he says tersely. “Not why I came.”

It's difficult to track down a feeling, especially one as temperamental as this. It wanes and ebbs and in the two months that he's been on the run Loki has narrowed it down to a hunger. 

The loneliness, the betrayal, the agony, the fury - they're all shades of the same, multifaceted, all encompassing hunger. 

He can't eat, he can't sleep, he can't even think, without that gaping hunger wrenching at him as if he were really starving. 

While Loki doesn't quite know what will satiate the hunger, he's betting that it lives and festers in the minds of other gods. Two other gods in particular. Maybe more by now. A frown flits across Loki's face, surfacing and erasing itself between breaths. He casually walks out of the throne room, trying not to fret over the footprints he can't help but leave behind in the near inch of dirt and dust. 

Loki picks up on a faint ticking sound as he moves down the hall. He pauses and strains to listen. 

A siren blasts through the general silence of the abandoned palace and Loki visibly startles, eyes widening comically and jumping back towards the wall.

Another siren follows. 

When he's nearly recovered from the shock Loki's jaw tenses in a different sort of surprise. He's only heard the siren twice. He recognizes it from when it was branded into his brain during the early weeks of the Kaiju war, before the Asgardians had fallen back to the prisons. A Kaiju has gotten past the perimeter.

A third siren blares. It's in the palace. 

The siren stops, but Loki can still hear it ringing in his ears, loud enough to drown out the sounds of his own panic. 

Loki leans against the wall, waiting for the tell tale sounds of a Kaiju. Heavy footfall. Buildings crumbling. Trees creaking. When he eventually hears the crunch of something enormous walking, there's an unmistakeable mechanical whirring that follows. Jaegar are in the palace. 

Loki runs down the hallway, his boots pounding on the floor masked by the louder movements of the Jaeger. They aren't looking for him anyways. Their prey is several stories tall. Visibly monstrous. Frequently attacks them first. That the Jaegar haven't already been attacked is a curiosity. A theory is already working at the edges of Loki's mind, but he refuses to acknowledge it as he runs, bolting down one of the hidden entrances to the prison that thankfully no one has closed off yet. Or, that no one knew about to close off. 

The corridors of the prison are empty. Most of the Asgardians have probably moved to the lower floors and are hiding out the Kaiju attack in the strongest bunkers. The Jaeger pilots will be in their Jaegers, now stomping around above ground. If Loki had wanted to plan a smooth break and enter he probably couldn't have done it better if he tried. Odin and Frigga will be in their Jaeger, Sleipnir. Loki fails not to clench his teeth as he imagines Thor in Mjolnir, linked up to his replacement co-pilot. Their minds would blur in the drift, warm, connected, and practically glowing in a way that even the war and desecration around them can't touch. Loki's stomach churns as he gets lost in the memory, jarring as it affixes itself to a new reality where he isn't the one drifting with Thor. 

Loki rounds on the control room and slips inside, hoping to catch sight of the Kaiju monitors. He wants to know where they are. How many there are. How dangerous leaving will be. Loki isn't the only one interested in the monitors. 

There's a figure huddled in the neon light of the monitors, bearded face cast in eerie shadows. He turns as Loki enters the room and his face goes all wrong as it changes from fear to surprise, to confusion, and then softens as it falls off on adoring. 

“Loki?” Thor asks as if he can't believe his eyes. He blinks them rapidly, several times. 

Loki's eyes slide past Thor, painful as it is to do so, every fiber of his being screaming nonoyesyesno, and land on the monitor. Exactly as he was afraid of (or he would have been afraid, if he'd taken more than a second to even entertain the possibility), the little dot for the single Kaiju on land is pinging right above the control room. 

Thor pulls himself out of looking at Loki as if he's staring into the sun for long enough to say, “Loki, we must leave. The Kaiju is here.”

“Yes,” Loki says with an ugly half smile he can't even bring himself to wear properly. It all feels so _wrong_. 

Thor's eyebrows furrow in confusion as he stares at his brother. The line between them deepens as Loki approaches him calmly. 

“The Kaiju is here,” Loki says. He stops in front of Thor, tenderly tracing his shaking hand down the line of Thor's jaw. Thor doesn't move away. He leans into the touch. 

“This is the part where you should be afraid,” Loki says, and without breaking his smile he cracks his fist into the side of Thor's head and catches him before he falls, knees buckling as he strains to hold up the dead weight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real life happened, so there was a longer delay than expected. Only one more chapter to go!!

Pain ekes into Thor's consciousness as he rouses from sleep to an irregular tapping sound. His whole body aches. The tapping goes right to the dehydration headache grinding Thor's brain and he opens his eyes with a groan. 

Thor catches a fuzzy image, but then he sees it. LOKI! Loki's alive! Loki's here! 

All too fast the memory comes back and Thor sways with the force of it. He remembers Loki entering the tactical room and the pinging dot on the screen. Thor's gut clenches. He felt concern for his brother, while Loki trailed his ghostly hand across Thor's face, and then used that same treacherous hand to knock Thor out. Thor sinks lower in his manacles, sulking against the weight. 

Loki twitches at the clatter of Thor's chains shifting on the wall. His green eyes slide towards Thor and his scowl is not enough to cover up their frantic quiver. 

“So you wake at last,” Loki says curtly. 

“In no part thanks to you,” Thor snarls back. The joy Thor feels brimming over at seeing Loki hasn't dissipated, is incapable of dissipating, but it's no contest to the agony of missing Loki for months. Thor holds his head, but his pulse is roaring inside and threatens to drown everything out. “You could have killed me. Father has made me mortal since your betrayal.” Thor spits out the words that he's never said before, never believed before, but in chains he is finally ready to admit that this is truly betrayal. 

Loki flinches. “Mortal?” he repeats in spite of himself. 

“All of my powers are gone,” Thor says coldly. Even reduced to his knees, he stares defiantly back at Loki. 

Loki barely manages to not shirk under Thor's gaze. After several seconds he straightens his back and resumes his pacing. “Then I suppose the chains are hardly necessary,” Loki says, but he makes no move to remove them. He forces a smile. “I rather find I like them. In your proper place at last, on your knees,” Loki says with only half the bite the words command. 

Thor ignores the insult, scoffing instead, “chains would not be necessary in any circumstance.” He frowns. “I am your brother, Loki. What is this madness?”

“Did I hit your heard too hard or did I give you too much credit to think that you would put one and one together?” Loki quips back. 

“Put one and one together?” Thor repeats with a scowl. “What, that you were the Kaiju pinging the map?” He shakes his head, not failing to miss how Loki stiffens at the words. How no matter what situation they are in now, he is hanging onto Thor's every word, and suffering for them. Even from his knees, Thor has Loki by the throat. He always has. If only Loki would realize he has Thor too. If only Loki would realize Thor _wants_ him to. 

“Loki, why should I care that you are a Kaiju?” Thor says earnestly. 

Loki blinks in bewilderment at Thor. “How could you not?” He turns his back as he paces. “Those monsters that desecrated Asgard, that killed your friends, who will never go to Valhalla now,” he says, enunciating every word with a false bravado, “are my family. I am one of them.”

“No Loki,” Thor says softly. “You could never be one of them.” 

Loki stiffens and turns quickly. “I am precisely one of them!” he shouts. 

“You were raised Aesir. You are my brother,” Thor says, remaining steadfast. 

Loki rounds on Thor and grabs the chains, forcing Thor to his feet. Thor struggles as he's tugged in both directions; the chains are not long enough for Thor to stand properly and Loki refuses to let go. 

Loki brings his face dangerously close to Thor's, hissing in his face, “I am one of them, and they are me, and Asgard's throne will crumble at my feet, because there is nothing else for it.” His green eyes flash in the semi darkness. 

“Why would you think that?” Thor says sternly. His memories of Loki can't accommodate this seething wreck of a person. It would be so easy to say that it's the Kaiju in Loki, but Thor won't let his brother go, no matter how angry he is with him. 

“When we were on the beach and that Kaiju touched me,” Loki says. His whole body recoils from the memory in a shiver. “You have no idea,” he goes on, voice dropping to a whisper. He lets go of Thor's chains and they clatter to the floor. Loki steps back.

Thor sinks to his knees and watches Loki warily.

“You have no idea,” Loki repeats.

“So tell me, brother,” Thor says. 

Loki bites his bottom lip and for the first time since Thor woke, he really looks at him. For several strained seconds Loki stares at Thor. 

Instead of speaking Loki shakes his head and walks away, into the darkness of wherever they are, to a place that Thor can't follow. 

\- 

Over the next few days Loki does not release Thor from his chains. Thor isn't the only one incapable of accommodating the new image of his brother, and Loki is haunted by the thunder god he imagines he's restrained. Thor, who killed two Kaiju outside of his Jaegar. Thor, soon to be King of Asgard, even if Asgard is on its last limb. Loki brings food and water for Thor but refuses to speak to him. 

“You cannot leave me here forever Loki,” Thor goads him. “I will die.” The idea is so unfamiliar it is nearly laughable, but Thor's sense of humour's wearing thin, so he doesn't laugh. 

“Afraid of a mere mortal?” Thor says, another time. 

Loki arches an eyebrow at this but doesn't engage. He slips away, to where Thor has no clue. 

A small part of Thor fears that Loki really does see himself as a Kaiju and is helping their invasion. If he is, Asgard doesn't stand a chance. The rest of Thor dismisses the thought, knowing better every time Loki casts his glance askew when he's confronted by the sight of his brother in chains. There's fear of Thor's retribution, yes, but there's also a simmering uncertainty, and to be holding it for so long, it must be burning Loki up from the inside. 

-

Loki surprises Thor one day by saying softly, “they are almost gone, you know,” while handing him a glass of water. 

“Who is almost gone?” Thor asks candidly, accepting the water and taking a drink. 

“The Aesir,” Loki says, subdued, but watching for Thor's reaction. 

“They were planning on leaving before... you came,” Thor says, not sure why he's sparing his brother the brutality of the situation he's forced him into. The elisions come so easily, wiping out the violence as effectively as if it were pardoned. As if it were sanctioned that Loki's imprisoning him here, against his will. 

“To where?” Loki asks, perhaps just making conversation. Perhaps the Kaiju don't know and Loki's supposed to find out. 

“I know not,” Thor says with a shrug. “Odin had not decided last I heard.”

There's silence between them for several seconds. Loki doesn't offer any more information. Thor takes another drink. 

“Where will you go, when the realm is empty?” Thor asks eventually. 

“They will not leave it empty,” Loki says. “The Kaiju mean to colonize it.”

Thor takes another drink to steady himself, but glances over the rim cautiously. Loki said the Kaiju. Not my people. Not my true family. Not me. “Did they tell you that?” Thor asks. 

“Not quite,” Loki admits. “I felt it.”

“What do you mean you felt it?” Thor asks. He can't quite be sure that it wasn't all some terrible rouse, lies to cover up some truth, a terribly inventive form of torture, when Loki refuses to answer, rises, and that's the end of that. 

-

“I do not care, Loki,” Thor says, pleading into the silence that hangs between them. “You must know this.” 

Loki steps closer. His hand twitches as if he means to reach out and touch Thor's cheek. He offers him a sad smile instead. “You must miss the sunlight,” Loki says back, as if he weren't listening at all, his voice wandering and hazy. 

“I will take you above ground, to see the sun, when it is all over,” Loki says, probably to Thor, but it could also be to no one, because he's not even looking at Thor anymore. “It is almost over,” Loki promises. 

-

Another day, another week, who knows how time passes, Thor demands, “let me prove it.” 

Loki looks up and even manages to appear startled. “Prove what?”

Thor sinks towards him, at the edge of his chains. He's still a good two feet from Loki, but he imagines he can feel the heat from his brother's body. Thor's beginning to forget what it feels like to be warm. To be comfortable. Slowly, captivity is eroding his mind. 

“That I do not care who you are born of,” Thor whispers reverently. “Only that you were raised my brother.” He looks into Loki's eyes. “That you are my brother.” 

“How would you propose that?” Loki asks with none of the bite that they started this charade with. It's worn down as well. The role of jailor suits him ill. 

“Go into the drift with me,” Thor says. 

Loki stares at him blankly. 

“I cannot lie to you in there,” Thor urges. 

“Nor I to you,” Loki says. His lip twitches. 

“Whatever secrets you have, I will carry them to my grave,” Thor promises. He shrugs. “And if not, who would I tell?” His chains clatter as he holds out his hands. “It is almost over,” Thor reminds his brother. “But it is not too late to try.”

Loki stares at him for a long while. He clears his throat but says nothing. 

“I know you are afraid,” Thor says. “But we have faced worse opponents before, together, and we have won.” The words come out and it doesn't matter who they're for, or why. Thor can see Loki's considering them, but he glances away, like so many times before.


End file.
